My damn mind keeps getting in the way with little things like: Hey idiot you gotta big gapping hole in your plot.

Maybe next year.

Though in the mean time, I’m not giving up the idea of writing a novel. Just going to take it on my own schedule and not having to worry about any set of rules governing how I write it.

What is that you ask?

NaNoWriMo which stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is an annual “competition” to write 50,000 words for a novel in just the 30 days of November.

So far I have 3,760 words written. Still got a ways to go.

Wish me luck.

As I search more and more for what it is I want to do in life, the choice between movie and novel grew larger.

I have always been blessed, or cursed if you will, with a vivid imagination. Many a story has started to percolate inside my brain. I finally decided to take the plunge and write a novel in conjunction with NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this November. I got about 4,000 words into my idea for a novel when it struck me.

Sure a novel would be a great thing to write. And, I would be able to enjoy a great amount of freedom in what I created. But, I wanted something that I could also turn into a commercial item. Basically, I wanted to make some money off of this.

The chances of getting a novel sold and published are tiny to begin with. The chances of said novel actually selling in a significant enough number to make writing my career are, well let’s just say they are worse than the odds of me finding a pair of 21 year old redhead gals in just skimpy lace lingerie laying in my bed.

So I decided to focus my energy on screenwriting. Granted the chances of becoming a professional writer for TV or films is not very good either, but they remain greater when compared to being a novelist.

Now the issue was, what would I write? I already made the choice it would be screenplay for a movie. (Many more contest for movie scripts to enter than there are for TV scripts.)

I first tried to adapt the idea I had for my novel into one for a script. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it probably wouldn’t work.

Then one day the idea came to me. What about the kids who are always told that they could be President of the United States of America someday? What happens to those kids down the road. What if two of those kids were always rivals throughout school and one day down the road they face off again?

That ladies and gentlemen, is the idea I am turning into a script. I would go into more detail, but I don’t want to give away the full idea and have someone else sell the script before I can get it sold myself.

So stay tuned to here as I show you my progress in churning out my first film script. Should be quite the ride.

And just think, someday down the road you can pop down about $7 on a counter to buy a ticket to see what I wrote. I know you are so thrilled at that prospect.

NaNoWriMo is a month long mad dash to pound out 50,000 words of a novel. The goal is not to make a great novel, but to just write a novel. 50,000 words would give you about a 175 page novel, basically a short novel, unless you are Mitch Albom.

I plan to attempt this feat during November 2006. A recent discovery might complicate things for me. I seem to write best not in front of my trusty Apple iBook, but instead I write the best on paper, by pen. This means that I must choose between writing in my lovely Moleskine notebook or on legal pads. A choice, which by the way, is as tough as choosing between using Microsoft Word, Apple TextEdit, or TexShop as my writing software.

For those who are interested, my writing workflow will be as follows.

1. Plot out or “Storyboard” my novel on 3×5 index cards.
2. Create some character cards that describe different details about the characters in the story.
3. Take an scene card (a 3×5 index card from #1) and handwrite the scene out.
4. Type in the handwritten pages to MS Word–This will serve as the first revision also.

A little complicated? Yes, but from the test I have already did a week or so ago, I think it will work out great for me.

So, wish me luck in my quest for 50,000 words. You can keep up to date with my progress here.